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'Love has its speed. It is a spiritual speed. It is a different kind of speed from the technological speed to which we are accustomed. It goes on in the depth of our life, whether we notice or not, at three miles an hour. It is the speed we walk and therefore the speed the love of God walks.' Once we grasp that in Christ God chooses to walk amongst us, it changes our whole understanding of the speed of love, and the speed of theology. In Three Mile an Hour God, renowned Japanese theologian Kosuke Koyama reflects beautifully on a theme lost to western theology and western culture in general – the need for slowness. With a new foreword from John Swinton
Asians, Christian as well as Buddhists and Hindus, are beginning to feel that Western Christianity has both preached and lived a Christianity without the Cross. Jesus did not carry his cross as a businessman carries his briefcase, or as Christians symbolically carry a well-filled lunch box. Even more seriously, Asians have experienced Christ crucified as crucifying them: This, concludes Koyama, is the most serious missiological problem facing the Church today. With vivid imagery that marked his Waterbuffalo Theology, Dr. Koyama, one of the most engaging of modern theologians, offers a meditation on Christianity from South East Asia which has much to offer the more formalized life of the Western churches.
We live in a world in which the church inhabits a deep existential anxiety about its future, feels pushed to the edges of society and doesn’t deal well with its marginalisation. Kosuke Koyama’s writing most notably in his famous Three mile an Hour God acts as an antidote for the preoccupation with speed, size and the spectacular - “God walks slowly because He is love.” In The God Who Walks Slowly, missiologist Ben Aldous explores how Koyama’s theology encourages an approach to mission which truly reflects the rhythm, pace, vision and surrender of Christ.
A dynamic chapter of church history is now being written in Asia. But the theological inflections at its heart are not well understood by outsiders. Simon Chan explores Asian Christianity at its grassroots, sustaining level and finds a vibrant, implicit theology that is authentically Asian. More than a survey, this is a serious and constructive contribution to Asian theology.
Although Jesus was born in the western part of Asia, it was not until fifteen hundred years later that Asia experienced the full impact of Jesus' personality and teaching. Western missionaries, the primary transmitters of Christianity, left behind a Western understanding of Jesus. Today, Asians are seeking the face of the original Jesus - his Asian face. For them, all understanding of Jesus arise out of their particular contextual needs. Enriching the Western understanding of Jesus, Asians employ new interpretative resources, cultural symbols, and thought patterns as they make sense of Jesus for their own time and place.
In the context of the growing debate over the relationship between humanities education and the future of liberal democracy, To Be One of Us surveys in dialectical fashion several contemporary humanist thinkers, and analyzes their diverse philosophical positions in relation to John Dewey's claim that "creative democracy" is the "task before us." The cultural roots of these diverse positions are compared on the basis of their normative conceptions of moral authority. The first section of the text contains analyses of Allan Bloom's conservative platonism, and of several critiques of his discourse of crisis. The second section is an exploration of Rorty's liberal pragmatism and its implications for education and democracy, and of the critique of Rorty which emanates from his political left. Finally, West's "prophetic pragmatism" is examined, and presented as the philosophical position best suited to "creative democracy," given prevailing social, economic, and political realities.